


What She Said

by MisplacedLonelyHeartsAd



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s11e04 Baby, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Original Character, POV Outsider, apologies for putting a damper on the cheerful part of this episode, demon-possessed Piper, episode coda, implied wincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5173493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisplacedLonelyHeartsAd/pseuds/MisplacedLonelyHeartsAd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode coda and missing scene for s11e04 Baby. A demon gets a close encounter with Sam Winchester through the unfortunate Piper.</p>
<p>
  <em>What she said wasn't true, of course. Demons lie.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	What She Said

> _“I tried to give her my number. You know what she said?”_

 

“I’d congratulate you,” said Edwin, “but you already look like the proverbial cat who ate the canary, so I’ll refrain.” He picked up his swan-shaped napkin and yanked it flat with more vigor than necessary, then narrowed his eyes at his water glass as though inspecting it for the slightest excuse to harangue the waitstaff.

If you’re going to be a demon, he’d always maintained, you might as well live it up to fullest. Mildred agreed, but she’d never taken much pleasure in treading upon the already trod-upon. Where was the fun in that? She made CEOs cry on a regular basis; she could afford to be affable to the little people.

Mildred smiled demurely. “Now, now,” she said breezily. “Green is not a good color for you.”

“Pfft. You were just lucky. Right place at the right time.” Edwin scowled after a passing woman whose handbag (Prada, two seasons old) had brushed his shoulder.

“That’s true, absolutely true. Of course you have to know what to make of these opportunities.” Mildred smiled opulently at their waitress, who made a beeline for their table and took their orders with alacrity, despite Edwin’s badgering her about every ingredient on the menu.

“This place has degenerated terribly. It’s staffed by morons now,” Edwin sniffed.

“Come now, Edwin, you’re just in a terrible mood. I’m going to leave her an excellent tip, because you’re atrocious.” Mildred daintily straightened the silverware in front of her and pushed the small but gorgeous floral centerpiece a half-inch to the left. “I have quite a bit of empathy for her—”

Edwin snorted. “Shut up, Edwin,” she said. “ _Quite_ a bit of empathy for her, now that I know what it’s like to be a servant.”

“A server, not a servant, you ancient monstrosity,” corrected Edwin. “It’s not the nineteenth century anymore.”

Mildred’s nostrils flared briefly. “I never lived in the nineteenth century,” she said severely. “I was born in 1901. And when I say servant, I mean servant.”

The waitress appeared with their bottle of wine, and while Edwin was occupied with fretting over it, Mildred studied herself in one of the large gilt-framed mirrors that lined the restaurant walls. Her short bobbed hair gleamed silver in a way that reminded her of the old-fashioned Christmas-tree baubles of her youth—her human youth, of course, before she’d sold her soul. She tilted her head slightly to admire her still-lovely neck, its elegance enhanced by the hard glitter of her oversized ruby choker.

She touched the largest gem, centered in the hollow of her throat, and smiled softly. The necklace would not have looked out of place above the fashionable velvet and silk ensembles of her teenage years.

This was her third long-term receptacle, as she preferred to called it (whoever popularized the shudder-inducing "meatsuit," she often thought, should be eaten by their own hellhounds), and her favorite. Let other, lesser demons blow through their youthful, frenetic bodies by the dozen—they were fools. She knew the value of presence, of stateliness.

She tasted the wine and nodded her approval with the gracious smile that had first attracted her to this body. Queenly, she had thought, and not merely in appearance. The woman had been a successful and powerful advertising executive, and that was what Mildred had been in life, for ten glorious years after The Deal, and in that era, she’d sorely needed that deal.

She’d chosen wisely, and it showed now. In the tall mirrors, she saw the reflection of a prosperous self-made woman, enjoying a well-earned meal at a Michelin-starred establishment. Edwin, seated across from her, looked like her spoiled ne’er-do-well son who was headed for an early midlife crisis. She didn’t understand how he’d lasted so long under Crowley’s rule—but he could be counted on for amusing gossip.

“How did you do it?” he asked. “I had all the best informants, and even so, when I got to that godforsaken place every eligible female meatsuit— _all_ of them were occupied.”

“Your best is evidently not good enough,” Mildred remarked. “I, too, had information about the likely destinations of the Winchesters. I guessed right and got there first, that’s all. She was in the restroom of the diner, washing her hands and crying. It was very simple. She never even saw me.”

“What did you do with your meatsuit?”

“My _receptacle_ ,” Mildred answered pointedly, “was taken care of by my assistant. She’s invaluable. You should find a reliable partner, Edwin, instead of flailing around by yourself.”

Edwin said glumly, “I’ve tried. I’m just not personable like you.”

Mildred said pleasantly, as though he really were her son, “Nonsense, my dear. You just need to make a little bit of an effort.” Then she went on, for she did enjoy dispensing advice, “You should find a real job instead of pretending to be a consultant. How do you expect to get deals without networking?”

“Consulting is a real job,” Edwin objected.

“Certainly, but what _you_ do isn’t. What was your profession in life, anyway?”

“Gardener,” Edwin mumbled.

“Ah,” said Mildred rather disappointedly. “Well, you should go to college. Find a fresh, smart young receptacle who just got into Columbia. Improve your mind. You wouldn’t even have to leave the city. And desperate, failing students at exam time? You’d make deals left and right.”

Edwin looked glummer than ever. “I don’t need to go to college. I just need a little stroke of luck. Why are people like you always lucky? To pick the exact diner that Sam Winchester would walk into, and the exact waitress he’d hit on.”

Mildred nearly spoke, then paused. “Hit on” was too strong a term. Sam Winchester had smiled at her, and she had taken it from there. It was an old-fashioned thing to say, but he had been a gentleman. Surprisingly charming and funny. And it felt to crass to discuss him carelessly.

“It was very strange,” Mildred said. “I thought it would be Dean. That’s why I chose the diner. I had the pies all ready to trot out—not a euphemism, by the way—when in walked the other one.”

“And?”

“And I don’t kiss and tell, Edwin.”

“I mean, is there any chance that it worked?”

“It was always a long shot. But she’d been off her birth control for a month—that’s why she was crying; her fiance dumped her after telling her he didn’t want kids after all—and I pricked that condom _full_ of pinholes.” Mildred paused as their waitress placed their starters in front of them. If the woman had heard the last sentence, her face betrayed no sign. “Thank you.”

Edwin sighed. “He didn’t notice?”

Mildred smirked a little. “Evidently not. He was very distracted, after all. You don’t know how good I am, Edwin.”

Edwin looked as though he’d rather not think of it. “I don’t know why Crowley’s so anxious to get his hands on Winchester spawn.”

“Oh, Edwin, think a little. His very own little baby Winchester? Especially if it was Dean’s.” Mildred pointed at the little salmon-roe-topped concoctions on the plate in front of her. “You should try these.”

Edwin eyed the orange globules suspiciously. “No. Anyway, if you’ve pulled this off, you’re set. You could be Crowley’s right-hand man—woman, whatever.”

“The odds are against it. And really, I don’t think being in Crowley’s inner circle is all it’s cracked up to be. But now I’ve had my bit of fun, and seen the Winchesters in person at any rate.” It _had_ been fun, to have the beauty and allure she’d never had in her real youth, but the real gratification had been in watching Sam Winchester’s eyes light up as they conversed, and to know that it was her own intellect and personality drawing him in.

Great sex, in the novel environment of the back seat of a ’67 Chevy, was the icing on the cake.

*****

Mildred took her time buttoning up Piper’s uniform. Dean had retreated to a respectful distance, but she could still see him turning his head to sneak a look now and then. It was too bad, she thought as she made a show of putting her hair up, shoving the little butterfly hairpin into the crack of the seat to gain more time, that he hadn’t interrupted them _en flagrante_ , for she was confident that he could have been persuaded to join them.

“Nice meeting you,” she told Dean as they passed him on the way back to the diner. She flashed him a mischievous smile with her eyebrows raised, and he grinned back at her delightedly, all but giving her a thumb’s up. _What a puppy_ , she thought. He would have been the work of a moment. Sam had been quite a challenge.

“Likewise,” he returned. “No need to hurry, Sammy,” he added.

They walked slowly, Sam hunched over with his thumbs hooked in his pockets, and Mildred with a light step in spite of Piper’s ugly sensible diner-waitress shoes. Piper had beautiful calves, and Mildred wished she could have decked her out in a proper outfit and seen her image plastered on a billboard. Sam Winchester as well, for that matter.

She stopped him halfway back to the diner. “This is fine,” she said, turning to face him. Beyond him she could still see the black Chevy with Dean Winchester in it—and they could hear him, too, for he seemed to be fast-forwarding through a cassette tape of Bob Seger songs, and snippets of lyrics floated back to them in the quiet dawn air.

_…seems like yesterday, but it was long ago…_

“Janie was lovely, she was the queen of my nights…” Dean’s voice bellowed.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry,” Sam apologized, but there was barely suppressed amusement in his voice.

Mildred laughed. “Don’t say that, I haven’t had so much fun in a long time.” And that at least was true.

“Yeah, me too,” he said. He gestured up the road toward the diner. “Um, I can—”

“No, it’s better like this,” Mildred interrupted.

“Okay.” Sam shuffled his feet a little. His red buffalo plaid shirt was askew, the buttons mismatched with the buttonholes. “Um, should I—can I—give you my number?” he asked.

She smiled gently as she shook her head. “Sam, this was lovely, but I’m working through some things now, and it’s just not…” she let her voice trail off.

He smiled back. “I understand. Completely.”

_I was livin’ to run and runnin’ to live…_

He turned back to look at the black car for a moment. “I have no idea what he’s doing,” he mumbled.

As he faced her again, she spoke. “Dee’s very lucky.”

It was timed perfectly, and caught him totally off guard. He blinked hard. “W-what?”

“Whoever Dee is, she’s a lucky girl.”

Mildred wished she could have captured his face on film. His brow furrowed in an incredibly entertaining manner as he stared blankly at her in confusion and stammered, “Uh, I—I—don’t—”

“You said her name. Dee.” She over-enunciated the words. “Last night. In the car.” She licked her lips and fired off her arrow. “When you came.”

His consternation ballooned into full-blown deer-in-the-headlights shock. He was speechless, and with her demon senses she could feel waves of panic pulsing off him.

_Hell’s bells,_ Mildred thought as she watched him, keeping her face a compassionate mask of earnest kindness, _all those rumors about the brothers are true. Or half-true, at least._

What she said wasn't true, of course. It was just a little lie for her own amusement. Sam had uttered no such thing—in fact, Mildred didn’t think he’d said anything articulate at all. Demons lie. But Mildred always made sure her lies were rooted in plausibility, and she told them with confidence. She’d grown very skilled at making people doubt their own experiences, and now, as Sam looked like he’d been punched in the gut, she knew she’d convinced him that he’d gasped a single compromising syllable in a moment of ecstasy.

He recovered enough of his poise to begin to apologize. “Piper, I—I don’t know what to say—”

“Oh, no, no,” she said quickly. “Don’t feel bad; I understand, and I just…” She laughed a little. “Well, it seems like we both have things to think about, don’t we?”

“Yeah.” He kissed her distractedly when she raised her face and stood on tiptoe, holding on to his arm.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I really needed this, and I’ll remember it forever.”

“Me too.”

“But don’t forget about Dee.” He seemed to be caught, for a moment, between pain and joy—and something old, something human in Mildred was strangely glad to see that he settled on joy. “Goodbye, Sam.”

“Bye, Piper.” He turned slowly and took a few steps before glancing back. She smiled and made a playful shooing motion with her hand, and he went on toward the roadhouse parking lot.

_Well I’m older now but still runnin’ against the wind…_

Mildred stood where Sam had left her and watched him walk almost all the way back to the Impala. He didn’t look back again. Dean got out of the car and sauntered toward him; he was talking but she couldn’t quite make out the words. She caught a little shout of laughter, and then Dean grabbed at the front of his brother’s shirt, shaking his head in an exaggerated I-can’t-believe-it way. Sam stood with his arms at his sides like a docile child, his head bent and slightly tilted as he watched his brother’s hands, and Mildred realized that Dean was unbuttoning Sam’s mis-buttoned shirt.

Dean shook out the two sides of Sam’s open shirt, then said something that made Sam laugh and bat his hands away. They were still laughing when Mildred turned away.

*****

Piper’s little purse—cheap, but cute, Mildred conceded—held her phone, a small wallet, keys, lipstick, another condom, and a couple of old pay stubs. Mildred poked at the lock button on the car key to locate Piper’s Ford Focus in the diner’s parking lot. It had been years since Mildred had driven a car, but she made it to the address on the pay stub without incident.

It was a small unit on the ground floor of a two-story building with the ambitious name of “Paradise Apartments” and an incongruous tropical theme. Mildred scouted the premises carefully and concluded that the girl lived alone. That was convenient—no need to deal with roommates; she could work much more efficiently.

Mildred had kept Piper unconscious for almost the entirety of the time she had possessed her, taking only half a minute at the start to assess her. It was then that she learned of the discontinued birth control and treacherous ex-fiance, before sinking the young woman into oblivion. It was an effective demon trick, but you could only do it for a limited time before damage set in. She had a couple of hours left.

She took a long shower in the tiny bathroom, and when she got out she picked out a pair of skinny jeans, a tight-fitting camisole, and a loose flowing shirt with a pretty floral pattern. Pity, she thought, that Sam would remember her in that diner uniform and not this. But then, Piper wouldn’t remember Sam at all.

_What’s done is done,_ Mildred reminded herself, as she had so often in the past. She stuffed Piper’s diner uniform into the half-full laundry bag she’d found and ventured out of the apartment in search of the communal laundry room. It was empty. She filled the washer, dumped in detergent, and slid quarters into the slots. As the water began to run, she took out Piper’s phone and looked over her latest texts. She picked a likely recipient—Emily—and typed out “Have a terrible headache. Doing laundry, what you up to?”

Then Mildred stretched out on the cold linoleum floor, arranged her limbs into a slightly awkward sprawl, as though she had fallen there limply, and sent the text. She woke Piper up, and in the next instant her smoky trail was headed toward the minivan containing her bored assistant and her own familiar silver-haired body, waiting for her a mile away from the diner.

*****

“Will you go back?” Edwin asked as he stabbed at his entree.

Mildred blinked at him. “Why?” she said.

“Well, to check on the, uh, infant situation.”

“Oh, of course, I’ll have her monitored,” Mildred said. “Though it likely will come to nothing.” She’d said this so many times that she’d convinced herself it was true. No magical Winchester baby for Crowley, and Piper would continue to live her ordinary life, disrupted only by a single bizarre episode of amnesia and a few unnecessary medical tests.

Edwin sighed. “Speaking of infants,” he said conspiratorially, “you know what I’ve heard? Crowley’s got some little girl in the inner court, like a real little girl.”

Mildred frowned. “Maybe he’s got his Winchester child already. He’s been at this for years.”

“No, no, I’m pretty sure it’s not. This is something different. It’s been really hush-hush, and everyone’s scared to death.” Edwin drained his wine glass, looking rather spooked himself.

“Everyone’s always scared to death.” Mildred sipped her wine. “Cheer up, Edwin. At least we’re not in hell.”

*****

“I’ll meet you back at the office,” Mildred said to her assistant, and she immediately transported herself back to Piper’s apartment building, just outside the laundry room door. She hadn’t intended to do this, but here she was. She peered into the room.

Piper had pulled herself upright into a sitting position. She squinted up at Mildred.

“Are you all right, my dear?” asked Mildred in her kind-old-lady voice.

“I—oh,” said Piper. She stared down at her clothes and plucked at the floral shirt. “Did I fall or something?”

“I don’t know,” said Mildred. “I just heard a noise, and I thought I’d check.”

“I’ve never seen you before. Do you live here?”

“No. I’m—visiting. Did you hit your head? Do you feel dizzy?”

Piper stood up slowly. “I don’t think so. I feel okay. Only I—” she paused and looked around the room, then down at the phone in her hand. “I don’t remember how I got here. I—this is so weird. I thought I was at work, and it was night.”

“That sounds very worrisome,” said Mildred. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“Yeah,” said Piper. “Oh my God, is it really Thursday?”

“Yes,” said Mildred. “Look, I can’t stay with you, so do you have—is there someone you can call?”

“Yeah, uh, my sister. Oh—she just texted me.” Piper poked at her phone screen and brought it up to her ear. “Hey, Em,” she said. “This is really weird—oh,” she interrupted herself as Mildred began to walk away. “Wait! I wanted to thank you,” she called.

Mildred turned. “Don’t thank me,” she said, harshly. Piper gazed at her in surprise, and she said more gently, “It was nothing. Don’t thank me.”

She stepped out into the corridor. _What’s done is done_ , she thought resignedly, and disappeared.

*****

Edwin held open the taxi door for her at the end of their dinner. She settled her coat around her, and he leaned in for a last word.

“Don’t fool yourself, Mildred,” he said. “We’re all in hell, all the time.”

She patted his arm. “Indeed. You’re improving, Edwin,” she said. “You’re improving.” After he shut the door, she fixed her eyes on the city lights which, brilliant as they were, did nothing to obliterate the night.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Bob Seger song that Dean forwards through is, of course, “Against the Wind.”
> 
> Thank you for reading. I appreciate any feedback. You can find me on tumblr at: [amisplacedlonelyheartsad.tumblr.com](http://amisplacedlonelyheartsad.tumblr.com) or on LJ at: [misplaced_ad.livejournal.com](http://misplaced_ad.livejournal.com)


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